


The Burgess Library Genealogy Department

by GretchenSinister



Series: My Top 10 JackRabbit Fics [7]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, well Jack is a ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22205233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Been holding this prompt off for a while, but hey, why not? Came to me in a dream:Human!Bunnymund (Aster is my go-to name) is an artist who moves to a lovely town with a lake nearby, which freezes over during the winter. And his first winter there (too cold for his liking), he starts seeing strange things, hearing strange laughter–in his cottage/house, on the path, near the lake…At first it disconcerts him, but then he starts getting used to it, even beginning to speak to the abstract invisible spirit. Makes friends, sort of, and acts like he’s really there, all throughout winter.Next year, he does it again when the signs come, and when he does, a young man with white hair reveals himself. The spirit of a boy who died during a winter many years ago. And the truth is, Aster’s the only one who’s ever bothered to notice him.And every winter, Aster finds himself looking forward to spending time with the spirit (Jack)...[cut for length]"Aster’s making the best he can of a small-town library’s resources to find out what happened to the ghost he loves. It seems like an impossible task, but from a certain point of view, that might not be so bad.
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Jack Frost
Series: My Top 10 JackRabbit Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589287
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32
Collections: JackRabbit Short Fics





	The Burgess Library Genealogy Department

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/11/2015.
> 
> Here's the rest of the prompt: "Eventually, they even fall in love. But Bunny isn’t ageless. And Jack can’t stay forever.
> 
> TL;DR Jack is a spirit of a dead boy, Bunny is a tenant of a cottage near the lake he drowned in, and they fall in love. Big issues with the whole “mortal” thing for Bunny and the “unfinished business, but no memories” ghost thing for Jack.
> 
> Let the ending be angsty! But play with the hope factor, since it’s Bunny’s center!"

Click. Click. Click. Click—then blankness. The glow of the microfiche viewer washed emptily over Aster’s face before he blocked it out with his hands for a moment.  
  
“Is there anything about the town from before 1813?” he asked into the winter weekday silence of Burgess’ small library. Ana, the young librarian who worked at the information desk, looked at him thoughtfully.  
  
“You went through the Burgess Bugle all the way to its first edition?”  
  
“There a law against it?” Aster shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. It had been noticeably warmer in the basement. “What else would I have been doing down there for weeks and weeks?”  
  
Ana raised one eyebrow. “Sleeping, I suppose,” she said.  
  
Aster frowned. “Why would I be—you don’t think—eh.” He scratched at his stubble and glanced down at his paint-stained clothes. “But I’ve lived in this town for years now. I live in one of the cabins by the lake. Surely people have seen me around enough…”  
  
“They have,” Ana said kindly. “Especially when they go ice fishing. But people don’t usually live in those cabins year-round at least partly because they’re heated by wood-burning stoves. It’s a bit too much of a hassle and expense for most people. And no one’s seen any smoke from your chimney this winter.”  
  
“Look, that’s just because…” _Because I’d rather wrap myself in every blanket I own and still shiver in order to make it possible for Jack to come indoors, for Jack to be comfortable in a home. Oh, and who’s Jack? Well, what do you know, must have slipped my mind, Jack’s just the ghost tied to the lake somehow, doesn’t know when he died or anything so he can’t move on. He’s a sweet guy, though he made things difficult for me my first winter here—but that was just to get my attention. It’s a hard task for an invisible person. Anyway he’s got a great laugh and he’s really lonely and really cute and I think I’ve fallen in love with him, so obviously I’m trying to figure out how he died so maybe he can complete his unfinished business and move on. Sure, sure, you might think that sounds kind of crappy because the best thing I can do for him is give him the chance to disappear from my life forever, but, like I said, love, and he really doesn’t seem to like being a ghost. So, it’s all pretty simple really, I love Jack and Jack’s a ghost who can only be around in winter, never heard of that before but it’s not like they teach you the ghost rules in school._  
  
Yeah, that wasn’t going to work as a good explanation. “Look, Ana, it’s kind of a secret. This is the first place I’ve lived where the temps have stayed below freezing so consistently, and it’s a perfect environment for this project I’m working on—paint doesn’t work in other environments the way it does here. It’s going to be really fantastic.” He shrugged. “I’ve been going without heat for the sake of art. What can you do? Anyway, there are also some themes I really want to treat appropriately, so that’s why I’ve been doing all this historical research. And it seemed like in the newspaper that the town had been around for a while before they started printing it. So, I was hoping there were maybe other resources I could look at.”  
  
“Well, that depends on what you’re looking for,” Ana said. “There’s been European settlement in this area since the late 1600s. We have a genealogy center here, but property records will be at the town hall. You could also look in several databases of larger newspapers for mentions of the town before the Bugle existed, though you’re more likely to find mentions of people named Burgess—it would take a lot of work to sort through. Depending on how deep you want to look, you could apply for a guest card at the North Dale University library, they’ve got more access than us.”  
  
North Dale was over an hour away even in good weather. Maybe he’d go in the springtime, when Jack had gone, when by going there he wouldn’t be risking getting stranded there and losing an evening with the ghost.  
  
“I think I’ll stay in town for now,” he said. “I didn’t know you had a genealogy center here! That should be really helpful, actually, I’m looking for as much information as I can about births and deaths.”  
  
Ana explained what resources they had as she led him excitedly to a door behind the biography shelves, and Aster relaxed as their conversation moved farther and farther away from frozen paint. He hadn’t wanted to bullshit her—she had been great so far—but again, the truth was a ghost.  
  
His jaw dropped when he entered the warren of overstuffed cardboard boxes and heavy books bound in cracked leather. A green-glowing CRT monitor hummed at a small computer terminal in a corner. “I’ll never get through all this,” he said, looking around for labels—on any of it!—and finding none.  
  
Ana gave him a smile that was half a wince. “Yeah, um, this is actually everything for the tri-county area. I volunteered to have our library take it and then someone got really mad that it took over the largest conference room and one thing led to another and then there wasn’t enough funding to really organize it. But!” she brightened. “Maybe your artwork will get the right kind of attention and you can mention that you used these resources—if you do, of course.”  
  
So. He was going to have to learn about frozen paint after all. Well, that wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t as though Jack didn’t inspire him. But a project of Jack—an art project, not merely research—he could find enough material in there to work on for his whole life. And then there was still the research, and that was more urgent because who else was around to give Jack a chance? Finding out who he was, that was only the first step. Aster was only in his thirties, but anything could happen, living the way he did with no heat in winter…  
  
But if anything did happen, he’d have unfinished business, too. And the strongest tie in his life was right here in Burgess.  
  
Well. That wasn’t so bad, then.  
  
He thanked Ana, promised he would credit the Burgess Library genealogy department, and opened the first box.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> datenshi-no-hime said: I need more!!


End file.
